Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 42 No. 4 2024

The Efficacy of Tournaments for Nonroutine Team Tasks

Florian Englmaier^1,2,3,4; Stefan Grimm^1,2,3,4; Dominik Grothe^1,2,3,4; David Schindler^1,2,3,4; Simeon Schudy^1,2,3,4

¹ Ifo Institute for Economic Research · ² Tilburg University · ³ LMU Klinikum · ⁴ Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Abstract

Tournaments are often used to improve performance in innovation contexts. Tournaments provide monetary incentives but also render teams’ identity and image concerns salient. We study the effects of tournaments on team performance in a nonroutine task and identify the importance of these behavioral aspects. In a field experiment (n>1, 700 participants), we vary the salience of team identity, social image concerns, and whether teams face monetary incentives. Increased salience of team identity does not improve performance. Social image motivates the top performers. Additional monetary incentives improve all teams’ outcomes without crowding out teams’ willingness to explore or perform similar tasks again.

DOI

10.1086/725553

Volume

42

Issue

4

Pages

921-948

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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